Image of Giovanna Petrucci via youtube.com

I wrote about slacklining last year, as James did the year before that, but we were nowhere near the class of skill practiced by professional slackers like those in Rio de Janeiro, where lots of young people go to the beaches and enjoy the relatively new sport in a much more acrobatic fashion than the simple balancing I’ve been doing in back yards and college campuses. Anna Jean Kaiser reports on the world champion of slacklining, an eighteen-year-old girl who practices in her hometown at Ipanema Beach:

RIO DE JANEIRO — Bouncing in the air above the sand of Ipanema Beach, not an Olympic venue in sight, is one of the most remarkable athletes in the world who has nothing to do with the Rio Games. Her name is Giovanna Petrucci, and her acrobatics rival those of the gymnasts and divers competing across this city.

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